Chosen
by Lady Aeryn
Summary: She's done far worse in her life - and would again in an instant - to keep him breathing. T for sensuality.


**Title: **Chosen  
**Author:** Aeryn  
**Characters/Pairing: **Harry and Hermione  
**Rating: **Mild PG-13 (quite probably even strong PG) for innuendo.  
**Summary: **She's done far worse in her life - and would again in an instant - to keep him breathing.  
**Author Notes: **This is definitely an "Epilogue? What Epilogue?" venture. H/Lu may be my Potter OTP, but damned if H/Hr still doesn't hold a place in my heart. This was a Christmas '07 present for gracelessheart, who asked for "H/Hr with neck fetish." *g*  
**Disclaimer: **As always, it's JKR's sandbox. I'm just knocking down the castles.

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She wakes to warmth solidly nestled all along her body - a hip thrown over hers, a chin tucked into her shoulder, long fingers sliding over and locking with her own. She smiles, snuggles more deeply against his chest, and brings their joined hands to her lips. He still tastes like strawberries and Rosmerta's champagne; her body tingles anew as she remembers the night before. His eyes darkening while they devoured her, her sliding the berry whole into her mouth right off his palm, tongue darting to his wrist to catch the juice there... and more.

Hermione turns that hand over in hers now, marveling at it. Pale skin and elegant bones and slender barely-callused fingers and half-bitten nails, it looks deceptively delicate for a boy's. It doesn't look like the hand that hurled Unforgivables at Death Eaters, or the one that destroyed the most feared wizard in modern history. It _is_ the one that trembled as it grazed the skin under her bra for the first time, the one that nearly dropped the ring in a rain puddle when he proposed, the one whose touch sends her to places even Luna couldn't imagine. It's the hand that will one day (years from now, they agree) lead their child onto Platform 9 3/4. Her eyes narrow when her thumb brushes the spidery white lines of Umbridge's ancient brutality, the only hints betraying the horrors this hand's been witness and party to. It's one set of scars among many - too many - and if she could heal them by kissing each one again and again forever, she would. She does anyway, every night.

She's done far worse in her life - and would again in an instant - to keep him breathing.

"Morning," she says. She turns her head to peck his soft lips. She pulls back to look at him and, as always, her breath - and anything resembling a train of thought - dries up at the sight. Ebony hair that always looks like he just got out of bed, smooth skin, sleepy smile, and most of all, flawless green eyes that somehow always look incomplete without his glasses. Looking into them she remembers why for so long, even if it seems silly now, she never dared allow her mind near _there_ with Harry. If friendship with him made her insides feel like they'd been wrapped around broken glass whenever he hurt, or hurt her, then being in love with him would...

What she'd felt with Ron, even with all his infuriating bullheadedness, had at least been... safe. Controllable. Harry was... she still didn't have a word for it. The coolly rational part of her mind is even now terrified of the whirlwind Harry sets off in her, like she's never stopped falling -- but the rest of her considers it fully acceptable payment to know he's alive and in her arms. She may be falling, but he's still there to hold onto while she does.

Those brilliant eyes flash as she grins and rolls him onto his back, and climbs over him. She dips her head, nuzzling then tracing the tip of her tongue along his strong jawline. His skin is warm and salty and _Harry_ under her tongue, and blooms an angry red when her teeth brand him. She finds his pulse and presses a slow kiss there, thanking any deities out there that this amazing heart still beats after everything that's tried to stop it, before she continues her exploration of his throat.

"You know I've only got the one turtleneck," he says wryly, to which she nips harder, licking the spot. He hisses and bucks beneath her, but it's as much pleasure as pain. She nips again and soon even his minor concern is evaporated, if the quickening of his breathing and the way he's grinding his pelvis against hers are any indicator. If he truly feels the need she'll do a glamour, but knows he doesn't really give a damn if anyone sees. The world's gawked at the mark on his forehead his whole life; _these_ scars of possession he actually takes pride in. Let that world know he belongs to Hermione Granger, he murmurs, breath hot in her ear - and that she belongs to Harry Potter.

_I get it_, Ron had said all those years ago, grasping the situation between the three of them far better than she'd given him credit for - better than she herself had understood at the time. _You choose him._

She's never once regretted it.

-

**[end]**


End file.
